Familiar faces in new places

Over the last week, Caribou County has seen the changing of the guard in all three of its biggest cities, with new elected officials being sworn to start meetings in Bancroft, Grace, and Soda Springs.  After the swearings-in (more on that later), the new administration’s held their first official meetings of the year, and got to the business of their respective cities.  The Board of County Commissioners also held their first meeting of the year, though since none of the commission seats were voted on in the last election, there was not swearing in.

Due to the volume of meeting information that resulted from four separate civic meetings, we will overview the new faces and summarize a bit of what happened in the first meetings, with more complete meeting reports to follow next week.

Bancroft

This Monday, mayor LuCus Spencer officiated over the swearing in of new mayor Joe Perry, and newly elected councilmembers Jessica Thurman and Mike Ackerman.  Thurman was elected to the position in November, having served as an appointed member in 2025.  Ackerman was also elected in November, and he and Thurman join Trevor Parsons and Jessica Vawser, who are currently serving on the council.

Perry has served as a city councilmember before, and therefore enters into the position with a good sense of what happens and why, though undoubtedly it make take a few meetings to hit full stride.  For the first meeting, the agenda stayed light, with swearing ins taking the balance of the time, and a number of the scheduled appointments having been cancelled beforehand.  A few of the discussion items were tabled, to allow the new members to become fully acquainted with the issues involved.

A brief discussion was held about potentially changing the time of the meetings (8:00 p.m. on the second Monday of the month), but it was quickly determined that the current time (dictated by city statute) was the most available to the members.

Mayor Spencer thanked the incoming group for their willingness to take on the tasks needed to keep the city up and running, and councilman Eric Christensen extended similar thoughts to those assembled.

Council assignments were discussed and roles assigned for the coming year.

Grace

In Grace, the main change occurred in the office of Mayor, where Jackie Barthlome will be followed by David Pristupa, who was sworn in by City Clerk Shelley Reeves, along with councilmembers Tyler Butikofer and Kimi Lowe.   

Butikofer and Lowe ran unopposed in November’s election.  Barthlome has been a strong advocate for Grace and Caribou County for many years.

After conducting the carry over business from the last meeting, Mayor Barthlome turned the time over the Clerk Reeves for the swearing in.   

Mayor Barthlome was presented with a plaque from the city celebrating her service.  Councilwoman Kathy Tillotson said, “I just want to thank Jackie for the twelve years that she’s put in as mayor.  No one will ever know what Jackie’s done for this city.  Everybody complains about everything that will all do, but no one needs to complain about Jackie.  She’s done an excellent job, and I just want to thank her.”

Mayor Pristupa then took over officiation of the meeting.  The next order of business was to elect a City Council President.  Councilman Curtis Toone moved to continue forward with Kimi Lowe serving in that role.  

Council assignments were then discussed, and set for the year.

Mayor Pristupa spoke to the council about an issue that he would like to put in place as soon as possible, which is the idea of broadcasting meetings live.  “This allows the citizens, if they can’t come to the meetings, to at least log on and see them,” the mayor said.  As he noted, meeting broadcasts are becoming increasingly common for cities, and they allow for an easier means of making city policy-making transparent to the public.  The City of Soda Springs, among many others, was an example Pristupa gave.  The platform would likely be YouTube Live.  Some discussion of the how to make citizens aware was then held.  

“I’m kind of an introvert,” Councilman Toone laughed.  “I didn’t know I was going to be on TV.”

Mayor Barthlome offered up that she had spoken with the City of Soda about their broadcast, and the staff felt that there were positive and negatives to it.  

The discussion shifted to a parallel discussion of how to create engagement at the meetings themselves and within the community in general.  The idea wasn’t an Action item, but it will continue to be discussed in coming weeks and months.  

Soda Springs

Mayor Austin Robinson being presented with a plaque by Mayor Gritton in Soda.

Soda Springs was the third city to see a new mayor take the gavel, as outgoing mayor Austin Robinson swore in new mayor Paul Gritton, along with new councilwoman Paige Byram.  

Byram was elected to one of the city council seats in November’s election, along with Ryan Carpenter.  But because Carpenter was not able to be at the meeting, there was not an official quorum. 

This created two main issues. 

In the first case, it meant that the nomination of Daniel Larsen to fill the seat vacated by now-Mayor Gritton could not formally be approved by the council until a quorum was secured.  It was acknowledged that the intent of the council was to accept the nomination and approve Larsen’s appointment, but without an official vote to do so he was not able to vote on items during the meeting.

The cascade effect of this was that Mayor Gritton’s appointment of Fire Chief, et al Dan Squires to the position of Director of City Services was also postponed.  A special meeting in which the appointment will be finalized was scheduled for January 14, however.  The Director of City Services position will allow for more coordinated management of the city’s essential services, which Squires is already well familiar with and qualified to oversee.

In addition, the positions of City Clerk, Chief of Police, and City Attorney were also sworn in, with Andrea Haderlie, Cejay Golightly, and Tom Smith, respectively, taking their oaths.

Mayor Robinson and Councilman Rod Worthington were presented with plaques in appreciation for their service to the city, and both provided encouraging words to the incoming crew, along with some subtle hints about taking a well needed break.